That doesn’t mean there were no challenges and no real problems. Business-owners questioned the creation of a security zone downtown that dramatically reduced foot traffic on a holiday weekend. Someone will foot the bill for amped-up security. And no four-day meeting can be expected to end a bitter war in Ukraine, for example.
In this newsletter:
- So who paid for the NATO visit?
- How long could the Kettering Health tech outage last?
- A Sunday evening visit to Hope Hotel.
Businesses struggle to find their footing during NATO assembly
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
Challenges: Operating a business in a community seeing dialed-up security and multiple street closures isn’t easy (to put it mildly). But Dayton entrepreneurs are used to overcoming challenges. It’s what they do daily.
Still, it takes more than a good attitude to deal with these conditions.
NATO village: Downtown businesses late last week and over the weekend continued to see some slowness after the city created a “NATO village” with some downtown streets fenced off, which deterred foot traffic.
But owners were telling folks not to stay away.
Businesses grapple with new conditions.
Oregon District businesses: Our doors are open.
So who foots the bill for NATO in Dayton?
Good question.
The price tag for the May 22-26 event ran in the millions, which will come from local, state and federal funding sources:
- Local funding: “The costs associated with planning, programming, and enhanced security for the NATO event are being covered by external funding sources, not by the city of Dayton,” Dayton City Manager Shelley Dickstein told us.
- State funding: The Ohio Department of Public Safety has requested about $4.3 million in state funding to help pay for safety and security measures.
Kettering Health: Tech outage could last 10 to 20 days.
Speaking up: Kettering Health administrators Friday night publicly addressed concerns about a cyberattack that dramatically disabled its tech system.
Resolution unclear: A statement from Kettering Health CEO Mike Gentry said these types of incidents can range from 10 to 20 days for health care organizations.
Kettering Health’s teams have worked around the clock to restore access, administrators said.
NATO delegates visit Hope Hotel, where accords were struck 30 years ago
What delegates saw: Representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia Sunday visited the very room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where their nations three decades ago agreed to end a bitter war.
Delegates from those countries and others attending the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Dayton this weekend visited the Richard Holbrooke Hope Hotel and Conference Center at the base, gathering in the very room where a breakthrough in the 21-day 1995 negotiations made possible that war’s end.
What they heard: “Our installation and our city stepped up to create an environment for compromise and the hope of peace,” said Lt. Gen. Linda Hurry, deputy commander of Air Force Materiel Command.
He was Wright-Patt commander in 1995. Here’s what he had to say about the Dayton Peace Accords
Peace treaties are often long shots. That was the feeling of Col. Garald K. “Robbie” Robinson, commander of the 88th Air Base Wing when Wright-Patterson hosted the 1995 talks that ended a war in the former Yugoslavia, he revealed in an interview this weekend.
What he told us: “Let me tell you, we defined 24-7, getting everything ready to go. Getting ... the five VOQ (visiting officers quarters) buildings ready — it was all hands on deck. All of the people within the civil engineering group, everything they had to do. Everything the security forces had to do."
“To me, that was all part of the Team Wright-Patt concept.”
Contact me: Thanks for reading. Tell me about your business at tom.gnau@coxinc.com or at X and Bluesky. I’m also on LinkedIn and on our Dayton Business page, with my colleagues. Find me as well on my Facebook page here.
Quick hits
Dayton makes history again: It’s what Dayton does.
Table 33 chef: Cooks for NATO delegates.
Former Fairborn bank: Ripe for redevelopment.
WATCH: Our best videos from the weekend.
Wrapping up: What happened on NATO’s final day in Dayton.
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